REVEALing Signatures of Habitable Worlds Hidden by Stellar Activity

揭示恒星活动隐藏的宜居世界的特征

• 批准号: EP/Z000181/1
• 负责人: Andrew Collier Cameron
• 金额: $ 293.75万
• 依托单位: University of St Andrews
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FZ000181%2F1
• 关键词: REVEALing; Signatures; Habitable; Worlds; Hidden

For millennia people have wondered, "Do other Earths exist?" "Are they common?" "Would they show signs of life?". We now have the technical capability to answer these questions. New radial-velocity spectrometers are capable of detecting the reflex motions of starshosting Earth-mass planets in their habitable zones; the James Webb Space Telescope has the power to probe the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets. Yet the unprecedented precision of these instruments' measurement capabilities is up against a fundamental astrophysically-imposed barrier to achieving these goals: contamination of exoplanetary signals by stellar activity and variability. Further progress is contingent on solving this "variability problem".REVEAL gathers world-leading experts in exoplanetary and stellar physics to tackle this problem in synergy:- We will build on recent advances in magnetohydrodynamic simulations of stellar atmospheres, and data-driven efforts to separate the exoplanet signal from the stellar variability.- We will simulate the "ground truth" of the turbulent physics of entire stellar photospheres resolved at the level of individual convective cells for a broad class of stars.- We will model the emergent spectra of these "virtual" stars and "observe" them using the same data-processing pipelines as stellar radial-velocity and transit-spectroscopy observations.We will continue to observe the Sun and stars hosting small planets found with TESS and PLATO. The stars' own spectra will REVEAL the clues needed to disentangle stellar variability from our measurements of their planets' masses and the fingerprints of molecules in their atmospheres. Our unified efforts will enable the new cutting-edge space observatories and ground-based facilities to realize the full potential of their designs, bringing us closer to the most profound discoveries we could hope to achieve in our lifetimes - the identification of another Earth or even possible signs of life on another planet.

几千年来，人们想知道：“其他地球存在吗？” “它们很常见吗？” “他们会表现出生命的迹象吗？”。现在，我们具有回答这些问题的技术能力。新的radial速度光谱仪能够检测到其可居住区域中星形质量行星的反射运动。詹姆斯·韦伯（James Webb）太空望远镜有能力探究岩石系外行星的气氛。然而，这些工具的测量能力的前所未有的精确度与实现这些目标的基本障碍相对于基本的障碍：通过出色的活动和变异性污染超球星的污染。进一步的进步取决于解决这个“可变性问题”。依赖的依赖世界领域的世界领先的专家和恒星物理学在协同中解决这个问题： - 我们将基于磁流失动力学的最新进展，在稳定的驱动式构图的磁性驱动的努力中，将超级涡流的变化分开，我们将努力分离出巨大的构图。整个恒星光球在各个恒星的对流电池级别上解决。恒星自己的光谱将揭示从我们对行星质量的测量和大气中分子指纹的测量结果所需的线索。我们的统一努力将使新的尖端空间观测站和基于地面的设施能够实现其设计的全部潜力，从而使我们更接近我们一生中最深刻的发现 - 确定另一个地球甚至在另一个星球上的生活迹象。